Islands' Sounder, April 16, 2014

April 16, 2014 edition of the Islands' Sounder

SOUNDER
THE ISLANDS’
Serving Orcas, Lopez and San Juan County
NEWS | Sea View Theatre is
saved by community [3]
SPORTS | Viking sports [4]
COMMENTARY |Wondering
about Watoto, too [7]
COMMUNITY | Orcas School
students stand up for the
environment [11]
WEDNESDAY, April 16, 2014  VOL. 47, NO. 16  75¢  islandssounder.com
Senators advocate
for Nunez to stay
by CALI BAGBY
Staff reporter
Benjamin Nunez Marquez has
spent the last five years not knowing when he will be deported
from the country. He lives a life
of uncertainty, but with a recent
letter signed by U.S. senators and
state representatives one thing is
clear; there are people fighting on
his behalf.
On April 2, a letter was sent
to the Secretary of Homeland
Security asking for another yearlong stay for Marquez, known to
his friends as Nunez. The document was signed by Sen. Patty
Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell,
Rep. Rick Larsen and Rep. Jim
McDermott.
The letter stated, “The abundant
correspondence from constituents
indicates strong community sup-
port for Mr. Marquez in his home
community of Orcas Island … We
also understand that Mr. Marquez
fulfills a vital role at a local saw
mill that provides important services and economic activity to the
local region.”
Nunez, shown left, works as a
sawyer for Jack and Jan Helsell of
Westsound Lumber Company on
Orcas Island. He has worked for
them for nearly 15 years. In 2008,
while taking his ailing 80-yearold neighbor Natalie White to
the hospital in Anacortes, Nunez
was picked up by Customs and
Border Patrol. Lacking proper
immigration documentation, he
was ordered to be deported. After
receiving a year-long stay last year,
Nunez is now again facing deportation this spring.
Over the last several years,
Nunez’s employers, Jack and Jan
Helsell hired lawyers and applied
for those temporary year-long
extensions on the deportation so
that they could find someone to
fill his position at the mill. But the
Helsells have yet to find a replacement.
The letter also states this prob-
Cali Bagby/Staff photo
Home and Garden 2014
Inside this edition
SEE NUNEZ, PAGE 5
‘Drift cards’ found washing ashore
by CALI BAGBY
Staff reporter
Last week Sukima Hampton was walking
on a friend’s private beach west of Eastsound
when she was horrified to find a pink card with
the words “This could be oil” printed on it.
“I was disturbed,” she said. “It really rattled
my cage.”
The card was one of 650 “drift cards”
launched along Salish Sea oil tanker routes
by conservation groups from Washington and
British Columbia to commemorate the 25th
anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
The launching of the cards, organized by
Friends of the San Juans in Washington state
and Raincoast Conservation Foundation and
Georgia Strait Alliance in Canada, is part of a
study mapping the path an oil spill might take
in the Salish Sea.
The cards were dropped at two locations:
off Turn Point, near Stuart Island, where Haro
Strait intersects with Boundary Pass, and near
Bird Rocks in Rosario Strait.
This research responds to a sharp increase in
fossil fuel export projects proposed in British
Columbia and Washington state. The proposed
Gateway Pacific coal terminal at Cherry Point
north of Bellingham and Kinder Morgan’s
increase in tar-sands shipping from Vancouver
and other projects will add an additional 2,620
ship visits per year to the already crowded
waters of the Salish Sea, making this region one
of North America’s busiest fossil fuel shipping
corridors.
“The increased risk of a major oil spill in
the Salish Sea is real,” said Stephanie Buffum,
director of Friends of the San Juans. “Anyone
with a cultural, environmental or economic
interest in our region should get engaged with
Coast Guard rule making; familiarize themselves with effects of cargo traveling through
our waters; and ask decision makers to ensure
diluted bitumen (oil sand) is classified as a
petroleum product that is taxed to fund oil spill
clean-up efforts.”
Members of the public are asked to get
involved in the research project by staying
on the lookout for the 4 by 6-inch pink drift
cards on local shorelines. Found cards can
be reported online at the interactive website: www.SalishSeaSpillMap.org. You can also
call Friends of the San Juans at 378-2319 or
email friends@sanjuans.org. They ask that you
give the date, time, contact information and an
“as accurate as possible” location description of
your find. You can also send a picture of yourself with the card.
As of Friday, March 28, four days into the
study, 45 cards have been reported from Lummi
Island, Wash., to Victoria, British Columbia.
Cards from Monday’s drop off at Bird Rocks
SEE OIL, PAGE 5
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